Went to the Rodeo for the first time in 4 years…

[Governor Megachris%Participant 3584]

I must say, as fun as it was seeing all the awesome livestock and watching the impressive skills these men had, there was one thing in particular that REALLY bothered me about an otherwise pretty awesome show.  Maybe this sounds petty and/or expected, but here goes.

After seeing men lasso and wrestle cows, ride bulls, etc., there was a “women’s barrel riding” section.

One out of 8 women rode through rather flawlessly, the other 7 were penalized for knocking over barrels.

Now comes the worst part:  Near the end, there was an “audience reaction” part where the people that made mistakes would have their replay shown, and the best mistake or mishap would win the “high flyer award”, which would earn them a paid flight and nice vacation somewhere (I can’t remember where exactly right now).  4 men and one woman were shown.  One man was trampled on the crotch AND kicked in the back of the head.  Quite brutal looking, but he was okay.  One man was thrown what looked to be about 10 feet in the air by a bull.  That to me was the most deserving of what was called a “high flyer award.”  The one woman they showed only knocked a barrel over and her horse slipped over a little.  Looked to me like poor handling at the last second from her panicking a little.

The winner was determined by the audience cheers and a scoring system.

The woman won in a landslide.  The audience was the loudest for her.  I felt like the only one sitting there saying, “why!?  Nothing exciting happened to her!”

On a bonus note here, the announcer asked everyone “how many people here are married/single/women/men/above 40/below 40?”  He then asked “how many people here are married pretending to be single?”  Needless to say, the cheering sounded rather overwhelmingly female.

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